Whispers in the Graveyard by Theresa Breslin

Author:Theresa Breslin [Breslin, Theresa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780317595
Publisher: Egmont

CHAPTER XVI

Now.

All the colours are in my head, whirling and spinning and clashing together, my mind a broken kaleidoscope of red and green and gold.

I charge upstairs and hurtle into my room.

I tear down the posters, rip the fantasy from my ceiling and walls. Pull off silvered unicorns and pale princesses. Turreted castles fall. Elves and goblins, bright cartoon characters, things of his imagination and mine. I’m going to kill them all. I drag down brilliant-hued jungles with blue and yellow gaudy parrots. Trample them under my feet. Stand on the crumpled paper, crush and grind the tarnished dreams into my worn brown carpet.

Lies. Lies. Make-believe and fairy tales. Now the truth is here. The walls of my life, drab, torn and graffitied.

And the grey comes flooding in. Up into my nostrils, rolling through me like a sea fog. Into my life. Into my dreams. Cold and dismal, thin vapour slipping around me as I walk. And I’m looking for someone and calling their name. Some wailful thin and reedy voice answers me. Faintly mewing and carrying me forward to find its owner. But there’s nothing I can do. There is a pit before me, crawling with vermin and worms. I cannot help. I cannot.

And the next day the dream is still with me. In Watkins’ morning reveille its tendrils are still wrapped around my brain.

I am cold. By lunchtime I am shaking and ill.

Peter is sent with me to the medical room to sit out for an hour. My arm aches but there is no itch, and when I pull back my sleeve to look at the wound there is barely a mark on my skin.

And as I do so, she passes by. Did I know she would? The medical room is just by the staffroom door.

She tuts. Presses her cool hand on my arm. ‘Nothing there now,’ she says. She pulls my sleeve back down. ‘I’ll get you some tea.’

My heart is crashing inside my chest. Rhythms of panic cascading through me. She comes back with the tea and sits while I drink it. Peter gets up, walks to the window and looks out into the playground. Ms Talmur takes the mug from my fingers and sets it down on the floor. Puts her fingers under my chin and holds my head, searching my eyes.

‘Well? Shall I speak to the Head? Get you out of class to come to me for tuition?’ She lets go abruptly and my head drops down.

Then . . . I nod.

‘Thank God for that,’ and she’s gone.

‘Way to go, Sol,’ says Peter softly.

So, now, I’m in the infants. If it wasn’t for Amy I think I’d have chucked it right off.

‘There’s that boy,’ chants one. ‘The one who broke things and shouted. Why is he back?’

‘To help me,’ says Amy, at once, ‘cos I’m new.’ She slips her little hand into mine and I sit down beside her.

Oh, do I need courage, the courage of a lifetime. For a lifetime.

She scatters coloured beads in her counting tray, amber, amethyst, turquoise and red.

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